


The Target

by LittleTurtle95



Series: You only live once (but do you?) [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Adrian Mellon Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/M, Hate Crimes, Hurt Eddie Kaspbrak, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mentioned Georgie Denbrough, Protective Eddie Kaspbrak, Protective Richie Tozier, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25426786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleTurtle95/pseuds/LittleTurtle95
Summary: The Losers’ Club is a team of immortals who like to right the wrongs when they see them.They all come from various times in history, and they only have each other.There’s Bill, born Bjørn, the Viking.Stan, born Sroel, from the Jewish community in the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey.Benjamin, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during the French Revolution.Michael, who fought with the Union Army in the American Civil War.Richard and Edward, a British and a German boy who met on opposite sides of the First World War and died and woke up again the same day on the battlefield.And then, there’s Beverly, the baby of the team, that joined them in the eighties.When Adrian Mellon gets killed in 2020 while he was out with his boyfriend and wakes up in the obituary, he finds out that not only he cannot die permanently, but also that he he’s not alone in this. When the others welcome him in the Losers’ Club, suddenly everything falls apart.Starts as a group fic, ends Reddie - centric
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Don Hagarty/Adrian Mellon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: You only live once (but do you?) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843612
Comments: 16
Kudos: 94





	The Target

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt inspired by @reddiesupportblog on Tumblr! Go check their blog ❤️
> 
> Rating T because since they can’t die the gore is almost always light hearted, but there’s a lot of it, so if it’s a trigger for you please stay safe and don’t read it. There’s a brief mention of suicidal thoughts too, but it’s implied, a wink and miss.
> 
> I really wanted to keep it as a group fic but I'm a Reddie bitch so I couldn't bring myself to lol.
> 
> All translation available on the bottom notes!

_**Target** , /'tär-gət/, noun: _

_ > a mark to shoot at; _

_ > something or someone fired at or marked for attack; _

_ > a goal to be achieved. _

* * *

Adrian squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. Everything was pitch black and his chest hurted. He tried to remember what happened, his mind still cloudy both because he just woke up and be because of the pain. 

When the image of what happened flashed in his mind he flinched. _Don. Don, I need to find Don._

He remembered everything now. The city fair, his boyfriend giving him the hat and kissing him, the assholes trying to humiliate him and then Don’s screams, and pain, pain, pain, the need of air. Then nothing. 

“Hello?” he called, trying to get up – he was laying somewhere, he couldn’t see where, was he blind now? – “Hello? I’m here! Someone there? Help, please! I’m stuck! I’m-”

Then he felt like all the air was violently shoved out of his lungs. _Fire. Fire everywhere. A young boy and a kid, hot, cries. The kid laying on the ground in the woods, the boy shielding him with his body, sobbing. Water, water surrounding him, suddenly he was choking, then air again and a young woman, no, an old woman, a synagogue, music, kids playing in the background. Everything was a mess, it was crowded, so crowded, everyone was shouting in a language he could not understand. Flags everywhere – were they french flags? – a stab wound in his stomach, it hurted like a bitch. Shots, people screaming, his fingers drenched in blood, a uniform distantly familiar, an explosion, everything was white and then everything stopped to exist. Shots, again, more of them, grenades, and a football match, finger brushing, a young boy on the ground, lifeless, and even if he didn’t know him his heart shattered in a million pieces. A man was hovering over him with fury in his eyes, and he couldn’t breath, then those eyes were open and terrified, a mask of pure horror and then blood, blood, blood. He was underwater again, and there was a kid with him, screaming and fighting with his fists bruised, scared, angry, crazy, hurting, and-_

He gasped for air furiously after that, his hands flying to his throat. “What the fuck was that?” he slurred, still shocked. “Where am I, what is this?” everything was still pitch black. He couldn’t move. 

“Please, I have to see if my boyfriend is okay. Please…”

“ _Merde_!” Ben cursed, waking up with a loud gasp. He felt Beverly tense beside him on the bed, then she turned to look at him with wide eyes. 

“Did you-” she asked, holding her breath.

“Yeah.” he answered, and in the blink of an eye they were out of bed. 

They ran to the living room, where Bill was already rising from the couch, sketching something on his notebook. 

“It’s an obituary,” said Stanley, blinking his sleep fogged eyes. 

Mike was right behind him. “It’s the US,” he said, “he’s close.”

“I know where it is,” Beverly added. The boy’s face was starting to become clear under Bill’s skilled hand. “It’s Derry.”

A side door banged open, and Richie and Eddie appeared, Richie still putting on his glasses. “A fuckin hate crime, I can’t believe it! I can’t fucking believe it!” he groaned, taking the pack of cigarette that was left on the table. 

“Seriously, Rich? It’s the middle of the night,” Eddie complained. “You know I don’t like it when you do it this late.”

“Technically it’s still morning,” Richie said. “It’s four am.”

Eddie huffed. “ _Wirf deine Zigarette raus_ , Richard,” he said dryly, but leaned back on him.

Richie immediately hugged him from behind with his free arm, hiding his face in the crook of his neck, following his gesture like a magnet. “Come on _Liebling_ just one!” he whined, then Beverly stole the cigarette from his hand, ending the argument. Before Richie cold complain with her, Stanley shushed him with a deadly stare. 

Mike was furiously typing on his phone. “His name is Adrian Mellon, he’s nineteen. He was at the Derry City Fair with his boyfriend, Don, and a group of assholes cornered them because they saw them kissing. He reacted to protect his boyfriend and they beat him to death,” he said, showing them his phone screen with the page of the local newspaper.

Richie cursed out loud, and Eddie started to stroke the back of his neck to soothe him. 

“How do we break in there?” asked Stan, scratching the back of his head. 

Bill finally looked up from his finished drawing, the boy laying on the street, a Ferris Wheel merely visible in the distance, and another boy clinging to him, kneeling on the asphalt, crying. 

Ben squeezed his eyes, unable to look at it.

“Bev, Stan, we’ll go get him. Ben, Eddie, find him a spot to sleep and make the bed. Mike, Richie, go to town and buy something to eat, he’ll be starving and he can’t survive on macaroni and cheese like us on his first day,” said Bill, standing up, his voice steady. “Stan, you okay with driving? I don’t feel a lot like myself today.”

“Of course,” Stan said.

“Are you sure we have to do it now, Billy?” Eddie asked. “If you don’t feel good we can wait till tomorrow morning. We waited a lot more than a night to be recollected when it was our time.”

“If he’s in the obituary tomorrow morning will be too late,” said Beverly. “The coroner will dissect him tomorrow and will found him alive. He’ll make the news.”

“ _I_ ’ll go then,” Richie suggested, “you can go look for the food with Mike.”

“No, I’m okay, I’ll go. I’m going to change now, see you in five,” Bill said, and with that, he disappeared.

“How are we supposed to find him a bed? We’re out of beds, of sofas, of fucking chairs!” Eddie groaned.

“Yeah, and where are we supposed to find food at four am in the middle of the fucking nowhere?” cursed Richie.

Mike sighed. “I have no idea.”

A sudden crash woke Adrian up again. “Hey kid? You there?” an unknown voice called for him, and at first he thought he was dreaming.

“Adrian? Adrian Mellon?” said someone else, and he finally reacted.

“I’m in here! Hey! Thank God. Help me, please! Help!”

He heard a muffled _fuck_ and suddenly, a few rushed footsteps later, the world lit up again. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinded for a moment, then when his sight adjusted, saw the last thing he was expecting. 

He was in what looked a lot of what obituaries were in movies, and he himself was laying on a silver drawer. There was a metal table in the middle of the room, along with some chirurgical instruments. 

Three people were looking at him, two boys and a girl, all more or less his age. The girl had red fierce hair and a witty smirk, she was holding a gun. One of the boys had an unimpressed gaze and dark blonde curls, a curved knife in his hand. The boy in the middle was staring down at him with clear eyes, and a steady reassuring expression. Adrian didn’t know them, but he had no doubt he was the one in charge. He radiated authority. 

It was him who spoke first. “Hello, Adrian. I’m Bill. Welcome to the Losers’ Club.”

“I… _what_?”

The boy with the curls sighed. “As you probably already noticed,” he said, “you can’t die. We can’t, either. You’re coming with us.”

Adrian frowned. “I’m comatose, am I? This is all in my head. Fuck. I hope Don’s okay.”

“Your boyfriend’s safe,” the boy with clear eyes said. “Can you come with us now? You have probably many questions…”

“Yeah, wake me up when I’m hallucinating about him, okay? No offense but I’ve no interest in you,” Adrian snapped, turning on the side and closing his eyes. He hoped he was in the hospital. He hoped Don was there, holding his hand.

“Bev, will you do the honour?” the same voice said, and the moment later he heard a loud _bang_ and then, everything went black. 

When he woke up again he was sitting on the backseat of a car, the girl was looking at him with a big smirk. The boy with the curls was smiling too, clearly amused, looking back from the passenger seat while the other boy looked a bit done, he was driving. “You’re not dreaming. You’re immortal,” he said.

Adrian touched the back of his head and looked at his fingertips, now drenched in blood. “You _headshot_ me. Did you fucking headshoot me?”

“Oh yes,” the girl said, grinning. “I did.”

“Where- where are we going?”

“Home,” she then said, happy. 

As it turned out, _home_ was a farm in the middle of nowhere in Maine’s fields. Adrian was a bit shaken – the girl had shot herself in the head as the car stopped because he kept on believing that was all a dream and he threw up in front of the porch – but he came in nonetheless, looking warily around. 

“Hey, new guy!” a boy with big glasses jumped off the table where he was sitting. “I hope you like burgers because that's the only thing I could find!” the boy offered him a paper bag.

“Uh, thank you?” Adrian said, accepting it. 

“I’m Richie, by the way.”

“Adrian,” he said, taking the burger off the bag.

“We know,” he replied with a shrug.

“Bev, _chérie_ , why do you have blood on your hair?” another boy asked, sitting at the dining table. “You hate when you get it.”

“She shot herself in the head, that’s why” said the boy with the curls – _Stan,_ Adrian corrected himself. 

“Don’t overwhelm him, guys,” a boy with a kind smile and dark skin said, from the couch where he sat, looking up from his book. 

“You shot your head _again_?” the boy with glasses – _Richie_ – asked with a chuckle. “I love you Bev.”

“Again?” Adrian asked, still eating his burger. “Is it like, an habit of yours?”

“Bev is our little baby, she still likes playing with her lack of limits,” Richie explained. “She’s only sixty.”

Adrian choked on his burger and Bill started to pat on his back. “ _Sixty??_ ” he asked, coughing furiously.

“We don’t die, we don’t get sick, we don’t age,” a boy that hadn’t already talked said, from the couch where he was sitting. “You don’t now, too.”

“And she’s the youngest? You’re all older than sixty?”

“Not by much,” Richie said, “me and my Eds are one hundred twenty-four.”

The boy named Eddie smiled softly. “We met in World War One, opposite sides. We were meant to kill each other, I was supposed to shot at all Brits at first sight, and I did, most of the times, but not with him. Never with him. I first spoke to him during the Christmas Truce in 1914...”

“He was the prettiest littlest German kid I've ever seen,” Richie said, winking at him. “I gave him one of my pennies and he gave me his eagle buckbelt from his uniform, and he told me to quit smoking, that it was going to kill me. I was already head over heels by then.”

Eddie’s smile grew. “You smooth talker. And I was going to say I noticed you because you’re an awful football player.”

“Well, ouch!” Richie said, with a smirk, then his cheerful expression faltered. “The next day I saw him dead on the field, one of my comrades had shot him on the neck. I was so shocked I stopped functioning I-” he paused for a moment and swallowed. “I got killed too, no long after, from one of his people. We woke up when the fight was already over and we decided to run away together. We’ve always had each other since then.”

Eddie stood up from the couch and stepped closer, pecking him chastely on the lips. 

Stanley groaned. “If you think they’re disgusting it’s cause you weren’t there for their hundredth anniversary in 2014. Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Adrian smiled. He thought that was cute.

“Then there’s me. I’m Mike, by the way. I fought for the Union Army, I died on the battlefield too, in 1863. They gave me a medal of honour, the one they give to the fallen, and I knew I couldn’t go back home. I didn’t believe I was dead at first, I just thought everybody presumed I was and left me there. One year later a mugger stabbed me in my chest and I healed completely one minute later. I had been dreaming the others for a while, and I decided to join them then.”

“I’m Ben,” the boy at the table said, “I died during the French Revolution in 1799. I immediately knew I died because it honestly hurted like hell, and I woke up in an obituary just like you. I wasn’t part of the fight because I am not much of a fighter. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I died I already felt alone, so I immediately looked for the others. It was a blessing, and then, more than one hundred years later we started dreaming of _her_.” He looked at Beverly, his whole face lit up.

She grinned and blew him a kiss. 

“This immortality thing… it really was a blessing for me,” Ben finished, his cheeks flush.

Adrian stood there, his stomach now full, but his mind in shock. He looked at them in interest and disbelief as they kept talking.

Now was Stan’s turn. “It wasn’t like that for everyone. I wasn’t alone in life when I died. I had a wife. We used to get married so young at the time. I used to be a merchant in the Ottoman Empire, it was the 1370s if I remember correctly. I drowned in a river on my way home to her. When I finally managed to get out of the water, it had passed enough time for me to realise I couldn’t die. Nobody resists with their head underwater for hours, do they? I ran back to her and told her everything. She miraculously accepted me anyway, and she gave me three wonderful children. She died in her seventies and so did they, and I still looked like the boy you see me as now. When I had no one else left and I was utterly convinced my immortality was the worst curse and God wanted to punish me for something I didn’t know, they found me.” He stopped talking abruptly, and a cold silence fell on the room. “I mean, _he_ found me. Bill did.” 

Adrian didn’t seem to have noticed the mood shifting in the room. “You sound like you really loved her,” he said.

“I loved her more than anything, more than life itself,” the boy, the old man, said, smiling sadly. “I don’t even remember her face, or her voice. Sometimes even her name. The only thing I remember after more than five centuries is how much I loved her and how much I lost.”

Adrian stayed silent for a moment. He felt the urge to say something like _That sucks dude_ but he felt like it wasn’t the best way to convey what he was feeling, so he simply turned and asked Bill “You’re the oldest, are you?”

“Yeah, we…” he tensed, then cleared his throat. “ _I_ …”

“Bill was a Viking. That rocks, right?” Beverly interrupted. “His name was Bjørn. That rocks, too. They called him _Bjørn of the stutter_ , because his enemies were so afraid when he showed up that they couldn’t form a full sentence.”

Stanley snorted. He knew a different story, a story someone else had told him long ago, that was probably the real one. It was someone that wasn’t with them anymore.

“That’s impressive. When was that? I have no fucking idea,” Adrian said, mouth agape.

“It was 850. The world was a lot different, when I first walked on earth,” he said. “You’re lucky you weren’t there. You all are.”

“We know mate, we know,” Richie teased. “You’re _so_ tough and _so_ old and _so_ mysterious.”

“You bet your ass I am, Trashmouth,” Bill said back, without missing a beat. 

“Before you go to sleep,” Eddie said then, “you have to tell us who did this to you. We’ll take care of it.”

“God, you’re perfect,” Richie muttered, his voice muffled because he had his mouth on Eddie’s hair. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Time for a good mission.”

“A _mission_?”

“Yeah, that’s what we do,” explained Mike, “we right the wrongs when we see them.”

“You beat the shit out of the people you don’t like?” Adrian asked. “That’s what you do?”

“Beat the shit out of them, kill them, it depends,” Beverly said, unaffected. 

“Not the people we don’t like,” Richie interrupted. “People who deserve it. We’re specialists in different kinds of assholes. Mike and Stan love to slaughter racist police officers and racists in general.”

Adrian looked at them. Stan was shrugging with an half smile. Mike had an innocent smile on his face, he tilted his head and said “ACAB.”

Adrian chuckled.

“Ben and Bev go after the rapists, violent husbands, or misogynists in general. We,” he said, kissing the top of Eddie’s head. “Don’t like homophobes. Well, or biphobes, transphobes, whatever you prefer. But not arachnophobes though, or dear Eddie would have to kill himself, and he can’t die so that would be a problem.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. 

“And you Bill?”

Bill shrugged. It was Stanley who answered. “Touch a child the way the child doesn’t want to be touched and Bill will put a bullet in your skull in no time.”

“Sounds legit,” Adrian reasoned. “So you’re going to visit Chris and his friends?”

“Gladly,” Richie said, grinning. “Stabbing homophobes multiple times in the face is my favourite kind of date.”

“I share the sentiment,” said Eddie, with a smirk.

“I want to… I want to go see Don. I have to… I have to know he’s okay. I have to tell him-”

“You can’t tell him, sweetheart,” Beverly said. “He thinks you’re dead.” 

“That’s why I have to tell him I’m okay! I have to! He’s grieving he… he needs me!”

“I’ll go with him,” Stan interrupted. “I’ll take him to this Don guy, I’ll help him explain.”

Bill nodded. “That can be arranged. Go to sleep, now. You must be tired, the first time always is. Richie, Eddie, feel free to go whenever you’re ready.”

“It’s seven thirty, Billy,” Eddie said. “You know Richie has a _no kill_ rule before eleven, he gets grumpy with the morning work.”

Bill shook his head in resignation, but his eyes shined with a glimpse of amusement. “Okay then. Everyone, let’s go back to sleep.”

Richie was sleeping peacefully in his bed, his face hidden behind Eddie’s shoulder blades, his back to the wall and Eddie’s back securely pressed to his chest, when a scream pierced the air.

_No! No! Make it stop!_

He woke up with a gasp and felt Eddie jolt awake in his embrace. He was still trying to remember where he was and Eddie had already the hand on the gun, pointing it at the door.

“ _Scheiße_!” he cursed, his breath short.

Richie grabbed his hip and closed his eyes, inhaling his scent. He was never going to grow bored of it, of waking up every day with him in his arms, he knew it. “It’s just the new guy, he’s having a nightmare.”

“We should go check.”

“Eds…”

“Don’t call me Eds. Keep sleeping if you’re tired, okay? It won’t take long.”

Richie groaned. “No, _fuck_ , no, I’m coming with you. You know I can’t sleep without you anyway.”

“You big sap,” Eddie whispered, turning in his arms and giving him a small kiss on the lips. “Come on, let’s go.”

When they finally arrived on the spot Ben and Eddie had got ready for him, everyone was already there. Beverly was almost sleeping on her feet, her head on Ben’s shoulder, who was gently stroking her hair. Mike was rubbing his eyes, standing tall with the back leaning on the wall. Stan and Bill were at Adrian’s sides, he was sitting on the ground on the pile of pillows and blankets that Ben and Eddie had built for him. 

“What happened?” Richie asked, his voice still hoarse with sleep. 

“I had a nightmare,” Adrian said, still shaken.

“Tell us,” Mike urged, looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. 

“There was a kid, he was… he was underwater. I already dreamed about him when I died. He’s just… he’s just a kid and he’s locked up and he drowns, and drowns, and drowns, and his hands are bruised because he keeps fighting and he looks… crazy. He’s in agony.”

The elephant in the room could easily have been an entire dinosaur. Everybody was looking at Bill. He took something from his pocket and showed him. “It was him, was he?”

Adrian looked at the piece of paper in Bill’s hands. The child in the picture looked completely different from the one he saw in his nightmares, he had a smile on his face and he looked carefree, and innocent. The child he saw in his dreams was furious, desperate, terrified. But it was unmistakably him. 

Bill was waiting for an answer, Adrian saw him bite his lower lip so hard it started to bleed, one drop of blood running down his chin. Then, when he let go, the bruise on the soft flesh of his lips healed immediately, leaving only the red mark of the blood and untouched skin. 

“Yes. It’s him.”

Bill jumped on his feet and covered his face with his hands. “Fuck,” he said, the word broken, half a sob. “I’m going… I’m going out for a walk now,” he added, and without even looking for his jacket he ran out, slamming the door behind him.

“I’ll go after him,” Beverly sighed, with a sad look on her face.

“Be careful,” Ben told her. 

“Always.”

“What…” Adrian started, but Stanley interrupted him.

“It’s Georgie, or _Gunnar_ , his birth given name. He’s Bill’s younger brother. For a long time, since they dreamed about me, it was only them. They were very close. We were in England in 1603, and Bill and I were out for the day. Georgie wasn’t like us, we have always been sensible, he was more like a free spirit. People in town had started to notice him, to notice he was strange. He got hurt a lot in his adventures and he healed quickly. And small children grow up fast and people were starting to notice he stayed the same. We had planned to move to another place soon, and Bill usually didn’t leave him alone at home, but we wanted to go together because he had business to do, something related with our move. When we got back home, Georgie wasn’t there. The locals in town told us someone had called the Holy Inquisition. They had tried to kill him multiple times, when they didn’t succeed they had proof he was demonic. They locked him in an iron maiden and threw him somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. He’s still there, drowning, and dying, and coming back. It’s torture. Bill spent two hundreds years looking for him, almost not going out of the water, but it was an impossible task. He stopped looking when Ben showed up, but he still feels guilty about it.”

“We dream about him, too,” said Mike. “The only ones who don’t are Stan and Bill. We all dream about each other before we meet, like you dreamed about us, and we never met him.”

“Don’t worry,” Ben said, “the dreams come so often only the first couple of decades, then they become a rare occurrence. Last time someone dreamed about him was two years ago. We were hoping he was finally dead.”

“I thought… I thought we were immortal.”

“We are, in a way,” said Eddie. “But no living being lives forever. One day your wounds will stop healing and your time will come. We don’t know when, or how. It just happens.” 

Richie’s grip on him tightened. 

“How do you know that? How can you be sure?”

“One of us died once, Maturin,” Stan explained. “I never met her, she was older than Bill and Georgie, they met her when they died the first time. She helped them adjusting to their immortal life. She died before I was born.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Well, fuck indeed,” Richie said, dryly.

Eddie sighed. “I’m gonna get changed. I don’t want to get back to sleep.”

Richie stroked his cheek gently. “Yeah, let’s go kick some homophobic asses, it always makes you feel better.”

“And you? Do you want to go back to sleep?” Stan asked him, once they had left the room.

“No. No, I want to see Don. I have to see if he’s all right.”

As soon as Richie parked, they jumped off the car and opened the trunk. 

“Do you want the knife or the rifle?” Richie asked, with a big smile.

“Is that- is that a _real_ question? You always pout when you don’t get the rifle.”

“It’s a date, darling. My man has the right to choose how he’s gonna blow up an homophobe.” 

“This is the best thing anyone has ever told me,” Eddie laughed. “I’ll take the knife.”

“I know, I’m a sweet talker. Hey, wait. Really?”

Eddie nodded. “It’s a date, is it? If my man wants the rifle, he’s gonna get the rifle.”

“My hero,” Richie said, grabbing the rifle like it was the most precious thing in the world. 

“You’re welcome,” Eddie said, taking the knife and walking to the door. 

They looked around, making sure the street was empty, then Eddie kneeled to get a closer look at the doorknob. He slipped the knife in the keyhole and fought with it for a while, Richie standing behind him, ready to have his back covered. There was a loud _clunk_ and the door slid open. 

Eddie looked up at Richie and he nodded. Silent but quick, he slammed the door open and got in with Eddie following close behind, closing the door carefully. 

The house was completely silent. 

“They must be sleeping,” Eddie mouthed, and Richie nodded, gesturing towards one of the doors that probably lead to the rooms. 

Before they got the chance to open any of the doors and kill whoever they were going to find, one of the windows crashed suddenly, and something that looked dangerously like a grenade fell in the room. They both cringed, memories of the war still fresh in their minds. 

“Rich,” Eddie whined, trying to steady his breath. “Rich, what-”

Richie’s hand found his as naturally as the world spinned, as certain as the tide when it rose and fell.

“Look at me, Eddie. Look at me, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.” 

A white smoke started to fill the room and Eddie felt his lungs close, like _before_ , when he was still sick, when his asthma was at its worst. 

Richie looked at him hopeless, and started to feel his knees weak. The last thing he saw was Eddie rolling his eyes back and collapsing on the floor, he tried to reach for him but then everything went black. 

When he opened his eyes again, everything hurted. He squeezed his eyes shut feeling the worst migraine in decades. He didn’t spend much time thinking about it, he knew that thanks to his condition the pain was going to end in a few minutes. 

He cleared his blurry vision, blinking slowly. Eddie was in front of him, laying down perfectly still, as always the last thing he saw before he died or went to sleep and the first thing he saw when he rose from the dead or when he woke up in the morning. He had yet to wake up, but Richie was confident that he was going to very soon.

Richie sat up with difficulty and found out he had his wrists uncomfortably tied up by some plastic strings. He sighed. He was in the back of a van, surrounded by some kind of strike force dudes.

_Fun–fucking–tastic._

The men looked at him dryly, but nobody said a word. Richie huffed and looked down at Eddie again. 

_Why isn’t he waking up?_

He leaned towards him and brushed his shoulder. Eddie stayed still. His heart missed a beat.

“Eddie?” he asked, tentatively. It didn’t make sense, they fell together, they _had_ to wake up together. It had always worked like this. “Eds?”

“Quiet,” one of the guards hissed. Richie couldn’t care less.

Eddie didn’t move. Richie froze.

_No living being lives forever. One day your wounds will stop healing and your time will come. We don’t know when, or how. It just happens._

“ _Edward, Liebeling._ ” he whispered, brushing his shoulder again. Long cold fingers of fear started scratching his chest from the inside. “ _Edward. Bist du verletzt?”_

One hand grabbed his shoulder and suddenly he was being pulled back full force. “I said _quiet_.”

Richie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to calm down.

“Yeah, what are you going to do? Kill me?” he asked bitterly, his focus immediately back on Eddie. “Eddie, please, talk to me,” he begged, his voice cracking. “ _Bist du verletzt?”_

He waited the longest moment of his life, when Eddie finally scrunched his nose in annoyance.

“ _Nein, ich bin okay_ ,” he groaned, blinking his eyes open. 

Relief washed over Richie so hard he thought he was going to faint. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.”

Eddie sat up and looked at his surroundings. _The back of a van, great. Just fucking great._ He sighed. 

One of the man lit up a cigarette and started smoking, Eddie looked at him unimpressed. 

“Really, Eds? You just don’t say anything?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Why does it bother you only when it’s me? It can’t even make me sick!”

One of the men huffed. “Shut-”

Eddie turned and glared at him. “ _Halt die Fresse_!” he hissed, clearly pissed off, and the guard looked at him in confusion. Eddie turned to face Richie once again and sighed, looking at him with eyes so deep Richie got lost in them for a moment. “ _Ich sage dir, dass du sollst mit dem Rauchen aufhören, weil es mich sorgt was mit dir passiert. Aber soweit es mich angeht, können die anderen ersticken. Es kümmert mich nicht. Da ich mich um dich so sorge, nicht um sie._ ”

“What do you mean? It can’t-” Richie asked, because it didn’t make sense. Smoking couldn’t hurt him, not anymore.

“You… you were there, too. You have to know how it was, back then.”

“How it was… what?”

“I had to do it. I had to do it for them, too. I killed so many people like this, too many, believe me. It’s easier, at night. All is darkness until you see a tiny light in the opposite trench and you shoot. One moment is enough. You see this little flame that lights up an inch of a man and you have the perfect shot. We did it with you, you did it with us. One of my comrades died like this next to me, one night. He lit up his match, his cig in his mouth, I heard a bang and the moment later he was gone.”

“Oh, Eddie, I-”

“I know it’s irrational, that’s why I didn’t tell you, but every time you have that God forsaken thing in your damn mouth, especially at night, I don’t see you, I see a target. A giant red target on your head, a target I was forced to shoot at. I see it and I can’t help it, I get this irrational fear, this panic, it eats me alive every time. I see it and suddenly I’m sure I can lose you at any second. I see it and I have this deep certainty that the moment later something is gonna happen and you… and you… Richie, I can’t lose you. You’re the only thing that keeps me going, you’re the one that made a blessing out of this curse. The world for me starts and ends with you. Please. Don’t make me think about losing you every day. Don’t bring me back there, don’t do this to me.”

He closed his mouth then, trying to blink back tears. Not even the guards dared to say anything. “Shit, sorry. I got carried away.”

Richie was so fast no one could have stopped him. He leaned forward, cupped Eddie’s cheek with one of his tied hands and kissed him fiercely. 

Eddie tensed for a moment then immediately melted into it, he let out a soft demanding sound and Richie used it to deepen the kiss, all his problems fading away like background noise. It felt like coming home. He could never tire to kiss Eddie, he knew that. 

Just when he was starting to forget where he was, he felt strong hands grab both of his shoulders and suddenly they were pulling them apart. 

Eddie hit his back and winced. He looked at Richie already knowing what he was going to find. Richie didn’t disappoint him. Richie never disappointed.

“You don’t know yet,” Richie said, his voice calm and cold, “but you just made the biggest mistake of your infuriatingly short life.”

When the van stopped and other guards opened the back, Richie and Eddie were sitting together chatting cheerfully, surrounded by corpses. 

Eddie hid his face in the crook of Richie’s shoulder and smiled. “I guess they’re not going to put these off now, what do you say Rich?” he asked, showing them his tied wrists.

“Get them out!” a man shouted, and four others got in the van and pushed them off, two each.

“Guess not,” Richie said, with a smirk. 

The place where they headed them looked like something between an industry and a hospital. They were near some city too, but they couldn’t tell which one from distance and had no idea for how long they’ve been in the van. 

“I hope Bill is going to notice soon,” Eddie complained, while they were being pushed inside, roughly. “I’m already pissed off.”

“You’re always pissed off, Eds.”

Eddie shrugged. “You have a point. And do not call me Eds.”

“Where are my wonderful patients?” a voice said, and they exchanged a quick worried glance.

There was a man, with an excited smile on his face and freezing blue eyes, ice cold. “Why there’s only two of them? I said I wanted _all_ of them.”

“The others weren’t there,” one of the guards said apologetically.

“Then keep looking for them and bring them here!” the man yelled.

Richie scoffed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“It’s easier than you think. We’ve been following you for a few years now. We tracked all your great exploits all the way down to the fifties.”

“Not much then,” Eddie said.

“We read about an obituary break out and we knew you had to be involved. It was easy to guess you were going to have your usual show at the killers’ house. You love making a scene, especially with your kind.”

“Our _kind_?” Richie asked with a smile. “Like _better than you_ kind? That one?”

The man’s smile faltered. “I think it’s time for a quick demonstration,” he said, and one of the guards passed him a knife. “See you on the other side.”

“Don’t touch him, you idiot,” Eddie said, trying to push past the men that were holding him still. 

The man cut a neat line on Richie’s throat and Eddie saw him loll his head back and fall on his knees, still held by the men in uniform. The familiarity of it didn’t make it any more bearable. 

Every time could be the last. They always woke up, they always came back from the dead but one day they were not going to, so every time Richie’s heart stopped, Eddie’s heart followed in fear.

He waited for a few seconds, holding his breath, then the skin of Richie’s throat started closing again, leaving only the red stripe of blood that soaked his shirt.

 _Oh no,_ Eddie thought, once he made sure Richie was properly healing. _That was his favourite shirt._

“Fuck,” Richie groaned, once he regained consciousness. 

“Splendid!” the man cheered, clapping his hands. “Absolutely magnificent!”

“Yeah, your mom told me the same thing last night,” Richie commented, rolling his eyes.

“Rich oh my God, you’re embarrassing me in front of the bad guys.”

“Sorry baby, you know I can’t resist to a good _your mom_ joke,” Richie said, looking at him.

Eddie only wanted to be closer, touch him, make sure he was okay. He leaned in and saw that Richie got the hint, and was mirroring him, letting their heads brush. He immediately felt better.

“You think this is funny?” the man asked, a bit of bitterness now in his voice. 

“We fought in both World Wars, mate. Trust me, this _is_ funny.”

It was true. The two of them had fought in 1914, and every one of the Club had joined the second World War to help innocents with false IDs and save them from the camps. Eddie was a spy in the SS back then, him being the most fluent with the language. It was undoubtedly the moment in Richie’s life when he had been most worried. 

“You’re going to change your mind soon,” the man said, cold. “Bring them to the lab.”

“I don’t like the sound of it,” Eddie muttered under his breath.

Mike was looking at them from distance, watching Stan and Adrian talk to Don. He looked like an okay guy. Stan had blood on his injured hand, there where he shot himself to show the kid what they could do. It was the most effective way to prove it, but not everybody loved theatrics like Bev, they didn’t need an headshot every time. The hand worked fine. Plus, Stan was _old_ now. Every time could be his last. He didn’t want to risk it. 

Don looked like he was handling it averagely well – that meant, of course, that he had fainted when he had first saw his boyfriend and that he had thrown up when Stanley had shot himself, but it could have been worse – and they were talking now.

Mike was glad they had Stan, he was the perfect choice for this job. He was the only one who chose to stay with his family _after_ and if Adrian wanted to be with his boyfriend, if his boyfriend still wanted to be with him, Stan was the living proof he could. Adrian could always join them after Don was dead. They could wait for him, Don couldn’t. 

His phone rang and he answered. “Bill?”

_Someone took Richie and Eddie. We need you back at home now._

“Someone took… who? How?”

_We don’t know. Bev already hacked the security cameras on the street, we’ve got a license plate, we’re going to track it down._

“We’re coming,” Mike said, and hung up without saying a word more. “Stan, we have a problem.”

They were tied to an hospital bed, a woman with a doctor gown was dissecting them, collecting every part of them she could reach, ready to test everything. Bones, skin, hair, grey matter. All gone and grown back again, painfully.

Richie could see Eddie was becoming more and more pissed by the second. He hated to be held down, he had always had so much energy, he was always moving his hands, pacing, playing with his clothes. Richie was different, he was a different kind of restless, he liked to keep talking, he never let his mouth shut, he wasn’t comfortable in silence. He always had to fill it with words, it was the only way he could stop listening to his own thoughts. He didn’t like his own thoughts often. 

Now he was being his usual self, calling out the doctor with his wit, trying to lighten the mood for Eddie too, a flood of words coming out of his lips just as he always did. He was okay, mostly, as okay you can be while being held captive, dissected, and tied on a hospital bed. He could always talk. Eddie couldn’t move, and he was struggling, struggling _a lot_ , that was clear. He had his final evidence – not that he needed it – when an armed guard entered the room, a smirk on his face.

“It’s time, doc.”

“Okay, come here,” the woman said, then looked at them, pensive. “Boss wants to-”

Eddie groaned. “We don’t give a fuck about what your boss wants.”

 _He is not pissed off. He is beyond pissed off. He is furious._ Richie thought with a sigh.

“Okay then,” the woman said. “It’s gonna be him. Hold him still on the floor. I don’t want to stain the bed.”

Richie tensed as he watched the man pressing a gun on Eddie’s forehead as he untied him. Eddie was glaring at him in a way that if looks could kill the man would be obliterated by now. 

“Lay down, kid.”

“ _Kid_?” said Richie, outraged. “He could be your great grandfather, show some respect!”

“I said lay down,” the man repeated. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, then he glanced a side look at Richie for a moment. The guard pushed him urging him to oblige, and he did. He laid down on the floor on his stomach, Richie tried to lift himself up on his elbows but couldn’t. He only saw part of his back and his dark hair. 

“Now what?” he asked, apparently unimpressed. He could have fooled the others in the room but he couldn’t fool Richie. He was worried, at least a bit. 

“I thought you didn’t give a fuck,” the woman said, amusement in her voice as she talked. 

Suddenly the man shot and everything Richie saw was _red._ Eddie’s hair and the white floor were covered in blood. Eddie went still. 

“You’re seriously going to regret this,” Richie hissed, trying to get rid of the laces still holding him down. “You have no idea how much you’re going to regret this.”

“I highly doubt it,” the man smirked. 

Eddie gasped for air, his back raising again. He didn’t even have time to curse, the man shot him in the head again. 

“What are you doing? What’s this?” Richie asked, nobody answered.

Eddie woke up again, Richie could tell because his back moved again and he could hear his breath. The man killed him again.

“Stop! You’re hurting him! _Stop!_ ”

Eddie came back to life once again. The second later he got another bullet in his skull. 

“Shut up,” the woman told him, like she was bored. “It’s science. Boss knows you can die, he wants to know if it’s a matter of time or a number. Do you have an expiration date in, let’s say, one hundred - one thousand years? Or you’ll stop healing in one hundred - one thousand deaths? We have enough bullets to find out.”

In the time she told this, the man had already shot him two more times. Richie’s blood ran cold. 

“No. No, no, no, no. No, you can’t. Please, you can’t.”

“At least if he keeps healing is good news for you, right? And if he doesn’t you’ll know you have to be careful and try not to die too often. We’re helping you, in a way.”

It felt like a switch had been turned off in his brain. He was back on the battlefield the very first time, the one time he _knew_ it was final. The first time he saw his empty glazed eyes and knew he was gone forever. Just like that time, his mind shut down. 

_Another shot - another rasped breath - another shot -_

“Stop it, please, stop it. I’ll do anything, _anything_ , please… I’ll stay with you as long as you want, I’ll stop fighting, I swear. I swear, just stop, please, _please_ …”

Eddie didn’t know how long he’d been on the floor, passing out and then waking up again, a never ending loop of pain. He heard Richie’s screams now, the only thing he wanted was to turn on the side, to look at him, to comfort him. _Everything is going to be okay._

But he didn’t have enough time, every time he came back, an excruciating pain in his head, he only had time to remember where he was and then everything fell to black again. And again. And again. 

Hours passed, he felt hopeless, and Richie was still trying to get them stop this. It wasn’t working. 

Suddenly, he woke up one time and closed his eyes waiting for the shot but it didn’t come. Probably the man got distracted for something Richie had said. _Goddamn headache,_ he thought. 

He was about to turn and look at Richie, say something to him, when he heard the woman say “he’s not waking up.”

That was it, then. Maybe he woke up quietly this time, maybe Richie’s voice has covered up his first rasping breath, but they didn’t hear him come back, that was why the shooting had stopped. They thought he was still dead. Eddie stayed perfectly still. This could be what he was waiting for to get out of that infernal place. 

“You’re right,” the man said, and Eddie felt a boot touching his head. He had to use all his willpower not to flinch. “I think he’s gone for good.”

This situation had only one downside.

“ _No._ ” Richie’s voice was the most broken he had ever heard, and he was there when in 1937 he found out his mother had died three years earlier and he didn’t know it. “Don’t do this to me, Eddie. You can’t do this to me. Wake up, please. I know you can, just wake up.”

His voice was soft, and soothing, and achingly sad. Everything Eddie wanted was to tell him it was okay. They were going to make it, just like they always did. But that would have been a huge mistake, so he stayed silent, and still. 

“Eddie, please. _Liebling, Schatz,_ _Engel._ I know you can-” he couldn’t even make it to the end of the sentence, when his voice broke.

“Shut up,” the man said, “or we’ll do the same to you.”

“Don’t be silly, we need at least one of them alive for our testing.”

“Do it, then!” Richie raised his voice. “Do the same, with me. Do it now.”

Eddie held his breath. He couldn’t be serious, could he?

“No, I changed my mind. Don’t do it. I have to kill you first. I’m going to kill you, then I’ll do it myself. It took one hundred fifty three bullets, I counted. I can do it in a few hours myself. I won’t need you for that.”

“I’m going to call someone to take the body. We have to get rid of it,” the man said unfazed by Richie’s threat. 

“Touch him,” Richie said, “touch him again and I’m not only killing you, I’m haunting your family down. All of them. I swear to God, I’m going to kill every single one of them.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” the man said with a smirk.

 _Oh, how much you’re going to regret this,_ Eddie thought. He felt the man go out of the room, the sound of the door clicking shut. As far as he remembered, the woman didn’t have any weapon with her. He opened his eyes at last and smiled. The headache was already fading, thank God for his fast healing. 

He jumped on his feet and the woman had only the time to look at him with wide eyes, he cupped her cheeks and turned her head on the side. The dry snap of her neck and the strangled sound of her breath filled the room, then she fell lifeless on the floor.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, looking down at her. He thought about spitting but he was better than that. She was dead now, and she wasn’t waking up. That was enough. And he had more important things to do, now.

He heard Richie take a sharp breath. He looked at him for the first time since he was shoved on the floor. He was looking at him with glassy eyes, his cheeks wet. 

“Eds-”

“God Rich, I’m so sorry,” he said, freeing him from the bed. “I know I scared you, I wanted to tell you but-” 

Richie didn’t let him finish. He jumped off the bed and hugged him so hard he felt all the air leave his lungs. Richie clung to him with all his strength, grabbing his shirt with both hands on his back and holding him close. 

“Rich, I can’t breathe, you’re going to kill me again,” he said, but he held him as well, just as fiercely. 

He felt his shoulder wet and noticed Richie was shaking. He gave him a peck on his neck and whispered “hey, it’s okay. We’re okay.”

“I thought-”

“I know, I know, but it wasn’t real,” he soothed, stroking his hair like he knew it helped. “It wasn’t real, see? I’m okay.”

Eddie felt a long line of kisses from his shoulder to his jaw. He smiled and kept his fingers in his hair. “Yeah. Yeah, see? We’re okay.” 

Richie kept kissing him all the way up to his ear, then sighed in relief, all his body relaxing in his embrace. 

Eddie gave him a kiss on his temple. “Rich, we have to go. He’s coming back, he said-”

“ _Let him_ ,” Richie whispered in his ear, his voice hoarse, sending chills down Eddie’s spine. “Let him come back, I can’t wait to see him again.”

“Rich-” Eddie tried to protest but then Richie was kissing him with everything he had, making him step back until they reached the wall. 

The kiss was urgent, fast and angry, his hands roaming on his body, touching everything he could reach. Eddie’s hands went both on the back of Richie’s head, grabbing his hair, urging him to go on, to give him _more_ , _more_ , _more._

They both surrendered to the sensation, their thoughts slowly melting away, every coherence in their minds replaced by the other’s lips, tongue, breaths, touch. 

They finally parted and Eddie was beaming and Richie’s heart grew two times bigger. 

“ _Ich liebe dich_ ,” he said, pecking on Eddie’s lips again once more. 

Eddie opened his mouth to tell him that yes, he loved him back very much, when the door slid open. The guard from earlier was with other two armed men. 

Apparently, Richie was telling the truth when he said he was waiting for him to come back. He grabbed one of the scalpels from the doctor’s metal desk and in one smooth movement cut the other two men’s throat, then held the guard’s wrist that was holding the gun, making him shoot on the wall, and then disarming him. He closed the door and shoved him to it, a hand on his neck. 

The man looked at him with wide eyes, petrified. “Now who’s laughing, asshole?”

“Rich-” Eddie said, approaching him. 

“You shot the love of my life. You-”

“Rich, you’re strangling him.”

Richie turned to face him, his brows furrowed in confusion. “I know. That’s the plan.”

“Make it quick, don’t… you can’t torture him.” 

The man’s face was blushing bright red for the lack of air. 

“Why not? He-”

“I know what he did, but we’re better than him,” Eddie said. “Please, Rich.”

Richie let go just slightly, and the man gasped hungrily, his chest finally raising.

“He’s too good for you,” Richie told him, “you don’t deserve it. But I’m gonna make it quick anyway, only cause he asked. You should be grateful.”

The man didn’t look much grateful. He opened his mouth to say something, probably to beg, but Richie didn’t let him finish.

“I told you, mate. You shot Eddie. You shouldn’t have done that,” and with that, the man’s throat opened, from side to side. 

“Disgusting,” Richie cursed, looking at the blood everywhere in the room. 

“Yeah, don’t get me started,” Eddie complained. “I’ve got blood and brains in my hair and on my face, it’s filthy.”

Richie squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Do _not_ say something like that to me ever again, please. I’d rather not think about that like, ever.”

Suddenly the door slammed open and they both tensed, Richie still holding the scalpel in his right hand, ready to fight.

Beverly was smiling at them with a rifle, Ben behind her, with his usual bayonet. Old habits were hard to break. 

“Seems like you’re both fine,” Beverly said, “we were worried, you know.”

“There’s a lot of blood. Too much blood,” Ben added, making a face. “Why is there _so much_ blood?”

“Most of it is mine. They shot me like, one hundred and fifty times, the blood kept refilling and then they shot me again, it’s a bit messy.”

“That’s rad. So tarantinian,” said Bev, clearly impressed.

“It isn’t rad, it’s the opposite of rad. Could we just stop talking about it? Please.” Said Richie, walking past them. “Where are the others?”

“They’re taking care of the man behind all this. Seems like he had been keeping an eye on us for a while,” Ben answered.

“Yeah, we’ll have to be more careful,”. Beverly added. 

The others were already waiting next to the cars, Adrian had a big frown and looked exhausted, his clothes were a mess. “What the fuck happened to you, kid?” Richie asked, greeting his friends. 

“He jumped off the fifteenth floor to kill the bastard,” Mike said, admiration in his voice. “It was amazing.”

“I wanted to feel how it was,” Adrian shrugged.

“Cool,” Beverly commented. “And how was it?”

“The worst. One star. Would not recommend.”

“Why not zero stars?” Eddie asked, with an half smile.

“At least now I have a story to tell.”

“I like this new kid,” Richie declared, ruffling his hair.

“That was your favourite shirt,” Stanley said, out of the blue. “Why are you not complaining?”

Richie looked down at himself. He had already forgotten about the shirt. “I’ve had a rough day. The shirt looks like the best thing that happened, honestly.”

Bill held Eddie’s shoulder, grounding him. He always managed to make him feel safe, somehow. “The rough day is over now, let’s go home.”

Eddie’s hand found Richie’s one time more. When they were getting in the car he leaned forward and whispered in his hear “we’ve started this together, we’re going to end this together, too. You go, I follow. Don’t let anyone make you believe otherwise. There’s no way I’m leaving you behind. Got it?” 

Richie closed his eyes and nodded, trying to steady his breath. Everything he wanted was to drag him in the shower and get rid of the blood and brains in his hair, then go to bed with him and sleep for a decade. 

They had time for that. Now they sat in the car, both quiet, listening to each other’s breaths. 

Bev turned from the front seat and offered him a cigarette. “You look like you could use one. Here, take it.”

He looked at it and hesitated for a moment. “No thanks. I think I’ll try to quit.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really like this universe, I should extend it when I get the inspiration! What do you think? Did you like it?
> 
> Btw, the translations: everything should be correct because I asked a German friend of mine but if I maybe copied incorrectly and did some mistakes tell me! I am dumb so it's totally possible.
> 
> Merde! (french) Shit!  
> Wirf deine Zigarette raus (german) Drop the cigarette  
> Liebling (german) darling  
> Chérie (french) dear  
> Scheiße! (german) Shit!  
> Bist du verletzt? (german) Are you hurt?  
> Nein, ich bin okay (german) No, I'm okay  
> Halt die Fresse! (german) Shut your mouth!  
> Ich sage dir, dass du sollst mit dem Rauchen aufhören, weil es mich sorgt was mit dir passiert. Aber soweit es mich angeht, können die anderen ersticken. Es kümmert mich nicht. Da ich mich um dich so sorge, nicht um sie. (german) I tell you to quit smoking because I care about what happens to you. Others can choke for all I care. I don't care. It's cause I care about you, not about them.  
> Liebling, Schatz, Engel (german) Darling, gem, angel  
> Ich liebe dich (german) I love you


End file.
